March 30, 2011

These days I can’t get through a presentation on the use of social media in marketing without someone inquiring whether they should use Facebook as the primary web presence for their business.

“I mean, it’s free and look at all these cools tools you can add to your Fan Page.”

Let me be very clear on my thinking on this: Facebook is not the house, Twitter is not the house, your social profiles spread far and wide are not the house.

Your hub, your blog, your web site—that’s the house. Build the house, fix the house, decorate the house and invite the party to the house, because it’s the one thing you can own and control. It’s an asset you can grow rather than space you simply rent.

Your activity in social media is all about building a persona and brand that draws people to the house, whether you’re a plumbing contractor, consultant, or someone that wants to create a path to a better career. Build rich and engaging hubs on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or wherever your prospects hang out, but remember you’re always going home.

Focusing too much attention on your Facebook play is like spending a bunch of time decorating and fixing up a neighbor’s house while they are traveling Europe for a year or two. It may be a nice place to throw a party or entertain, but you don’t really own it.

An issue of control

The greatest reason I take this stance is because of control. You don’t control what’s being said, contributed and added to a social network profile like Facebook. You get to rent the space, but anytime Facebook decides it wants to remodel, you have no say.

A lot of smart online folks are raving about Facebook’s recent addition of a commenting tool that integrates with blog commenting systems like Wordpress. There are a couple features with this tool that, on the surface, are alluring—comments made on your blog are automatically posted to the person’s Facebook profile for example.

However, here’s what should be the deal killer for anyone considering this tool. The comments don’t sync with your Wordpress database, which is another way of saying Facebook now owns your blog comments. Facebook has done nothing that demonstrates them worthy of this kind of trust.

Keep this very important distinction in mind—you’re not a Facebook customer, you’re part of the product that they sell—and that makes all the difference in how they view you.

But, fix up the house

I hope you understand that the real house isn’t the physical real estate that I’m calling your blog or website, it’s the way you interact with customers, your email correspondence, your words, your consistency, your ease of use, your responsiveness, your use of video—all the things we’ve come to collectively call your brand.

There’s little value in working hard to attract people to the house if the foundation is cracked or the chairs aren’t cozy to sit in. You can certainly blow a bunch of cash on expensive art for the walls, but the real money might be better spent on making the house as guest friendly and comfortable as possible.

It’s just different in there

Here’s the other thing about relying on social networks as a primary commerce tool. It’s not an effective pipeline for most marketing related calls to actions. So, even the gentle come by our open house will likely fall flat.

I’ve experienced countless examples of people with huge followings promoting a book launch of even free webinar with little or no response while a mention on that same person’s blog makes the cash register ring loudly.

The porch is the bridge

Since social media relationships are so easily formed and mostly casual in nature, you must go to work on building reasons for people you engage in these settings to gather on the porch first. Do that and you’ll start to form the personal engagement to move them to the party—your blog or email list.

Most people’s marketing efforts in social media fall flat for that single reason alone. No matter how engaging your efforts seem on Facebook, they’ll never match the power of your email list or loyal blog following.

It’s not enough to get followers and fans, you must create the bridge that leads them to the house and that’s a step that eludes the social media first mindset.

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• Marketing

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John Jantsch, Article, website, social media marketing, WordPress, LinkedIn, Duct Tape Marketing, Twitter

Join the conversation ( 3 )

• Elaine Fogel 1 year 1 months and 28 days ago

  

  Hear, hear, John! It's a kin to advertising the launch of a new store, but you haven't signed the lease yet. :(

• Jonathan Usher 1 year 1 months and 29 days ago

  

  agree with John. Obviously Facebook can play a critical role in driving traffic back to your website/blog, but to supplement your website/blog with Facebook would be a huge mistake. CONTROL is the key factor in why you must invest in your website/blog over Facebook & Twitter. Control first means that you OWN your blog/website, and that cannot easily be taken away from you, where as you can lose your Facebook profile in an instant. So many people are violating Facebook TOS and don't even know it (having 2 profiles is one common violation). If you lose your personal profile due to a TOS violation then you will lose access to your fan page, that is why it is very important to have multiple admins to your fan pages. Control also means that you can control the design of your website/blog, what message get delivered, and what the user does next. Facebook allow *** customizations with FBML/iFrames but nothing like you can do on your own site. Users on Facebook have a short attention span and are distracted by ads and notifications unrelated to your business. Get them to your site as quickly as possible. Check out one of my fan pages if you need some ideas about using Facebook for business http://www.facebook.com/seriouslysocial

• David Rollo 1 year 1 months and 30 days ago

  

  In short, I (respectfully) disagree. I think you need to evolve your metaphor from a house into a home. You can't say the "home" for any brand is your blog, site or even communication style without understanding the brand mission, vision and agreed upon strategy first. I'm pretty sure that Best Buy didn't drive $5MM from its blog as they have credited their Facebook presence with.All I'm saying is that today's marketing efforts need to be (I *** to say it) integrated. These efforts must find a way to work together and ladder back to the brand strategy. In closing, and staying on metaphor... your house (brand) has many rooms. Each room has a different core purpose (goals and objectives) that deliver valued experiences to the people it caters to.Twitter might be your front porch, Facebook your living room and who knows maybe Linked in is your den or home office. The room you spend the most time in really depends on your brand and the type of relationship you have with your customers.